A Good Walk Spoiled Even More

With the United States Open ready to begin this week, the man some Europeans think is the quintessential American is making news across the pond in the birthplace of golf. Donald Trump is in Scotland this week testifying before the equivalent of a zoning board and trying to calm the local furor over his plans to build a monstrous golf resort on a pristine piece of Scottish coastline called Aberdeenshire.

In the typical bravado of The Donald, Trump says he plans to build the “world’s greatest golf course,” two of them actually, together with an eight story hotel, 950 timeshare apartments and 500 houses. This is certainly a bit of hyperbole when many would argue the greatest golf course is further down the coast at St. Andrews. Quite a few have been built since the Old Course was finished in 1764.

The local board which originally reviewed Trump’s proposal rejected it because of the impact on a protected environmental site. The chief solicitor at the time, Martin Ford, was then promptly sacked and replaced with someone more sympathetic to development of the site.

Trump claims his motives are not the almighty dollar but to protect the environment and to cherish the memory of his mother who is of Scottish descent. As the poet once said, “Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”

Golf is under some fire lately by the Greens keepers, and I don’t mean the guys who keep the golf courses in tip top shape through the massive use of irrigated water and insecticides. There are about 35,000 golf courses world wide, half of those in the United States, with hundreds more being built each year. Each course uses on average 312,000 gallons of water a day, which comes to about 2200 gallons of water for each golfer for each round. When fresh water is in such short supply, particularly in states like California where the Open is being played, such consumption is difficult to justify. In addition, golf courses apply an average of more than a thousand pounds of pesticides annually or five times more than is used agriculturally, not to mention the amount of chemical fertilizer and weed killer added to the mix.

If you have ever played a course like St. Andrews, or Pine Valley not too far from my office in New Jersey, where the golf is played on a natural landscape, the experience is almost spiritual and far superior to that played on one of those desert monstrosities kept a sickly bright green. Golf needs to stop adding to the environmental problems facing all of us and our children and find the green dead straight ahead.

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Hey Telfer, you might want to read the LA Times

To learn a bit about Sports Journalism and to learn about class.

You see in the LA times, a Basketball Journalist wrote after game one of the NBA finals, (an event that is slightly bigger than trans tasman netball) That Paul Pierce faked his injury. He said after writing this there was a ton of email that not only hurled abuse at him, but told him he may not have a house to go home to.

How did he handle it?, did he start to read the letters out loud in a smart alec manner, giving out the person's full name? Did he call them a clown and told them they should go to North Korea?

No, as a Journo, he wanted to see why they had so much hatered, so he emailed them back and asked them some legitimate questions.

The guy explained to him he was venting some steam, and went on to say, generation after generation of Boston fans have been let down by their team, so there is a deep seated hatered for the Opposition.

The Journo knew, that the guy was just joking about burning down his house and waited for the man to say sorry, which he never did, but the jounro explained in a calm way, that every sport must have a moron or two and then said sorry to the guy for calling him that, but he thinks he overstepped the mark.

The phone call was ended.

This is what you get from American sporting Journos, they are professional in their views, and respect others, and if some moron goes over the top, they try to find out why.

Perhaps its because we are from a small country, and once you have your foot in the door in a big news organization here, well ya never leave, and Mr Telfer you have been at the top of TVNZ or Sports radio for 35 years, but Im afraid your stuck in your own little sports world, the amount of emotion you show and sheer hate, to people who ask legitimate just astounds me.

Thank God for the internet, where you can access all sports Jounros from around every corner of the globe and find out that most of them, like the NBA writer for the LA Times, know what the word "CLASS" means.

If you havent figured that out in 35 years, you never will, but Im sure your happy in your own sporting world of Netball and Boat racing.

PS: You still haven't sent me my air ticket to North Korea.

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Winter ponies

Some photos taken today, just because :o)

Debi and Robbie

Debi and Robbie again

Pretty boy Reilly

Debi and Katie

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Why The Blackcaps Lost!

Why did the blackcaps lose the test series to England?

Was it because, we played poor in patches and weren't consistent?

Was it the duke ball for 2008?

Was it the English conditions?

Nope, it was the attitude of the players!

This attitude has been installed in the team ever since Hadlee retired.

The media picks an easy target in Braces and blames him, but thats too simple, but for the likes of Brendon Telfer and other Journos in this country its easy.

You see, there is something in the Blackcaps squad and some other NZ sports team that we need to get rid of.

Fulton showed it, early on this year, when England first played Canterbury on the first match of their tour of New Zealand, Mills showed it, during the 20/20 match.

While fielding these players just walked around the boundary without a care in the world.

There is a total lack of understanding what it means to be a professional sportsman.

We need to get rid of this number eight fencing wire mentality, we need to stop saying to ourselves, "Colin Meads worked on a farm" We need to embrace sport science like the top Footballers in Europe, the top sports people in Australia and America and Asia.

Every last detail, every advantage that you get, is of vital importance. But try telling that to the likes of the clowns we have in our sports media. When the Blackcaps ordered new uniforms, that gain them 3% more shine on the ball, (One of the only things they got right) the NZ media should of applauded, instead they scoffed and said "Whats the point?"

Do you think the Australian Swimmers would turn down the chance to have swim wear that gave them a 3% advantage? of course not. Or the top cyclists or sprinters turn down this also?

Our top cricketers have treated their time in the blackcaps, unlike any other sports people would, in their code.

This is a bunch of jackasses, whom when faced with playing Australia in a Test in Christchurch, decided not to warm up two hours before the start of play, like the Australian team, but throw a rugby ball around instead.

This is a bunch of players who for over a decade, have had Voluntary training sessions during a tour and decided instead of turning up for training they would go to the beach.

There is a reason Beckham/Ronaldo are so good, there is a reason Jordon/Shaq were so good. There is a reason Tiger Woods is so good.

The top sports people on the face of planet, will train, train, train, there might not even be a team training scheduled, but they will be out their practicing 24/7, they will be doing everything in their power to improve their game.

Unfortunately with the Blackcaps, they do the Opposite, we had a captain in Fleming who had the nerve to say, that training never helped his game, and this has been instilled in this blackcaps team, and yet we had a media who nodded their support for everything he did.

Now we have Vettori, someone who is trying to instill a sense of professionalism in this side, but we have a lazy media, who all they can do is bag the guy, while giving the former captain Fleming a free pass.

Its pathetic journalism, but it plays well here in New Zealand, we want to hear our sports players are different from the rest of world, that we aren't into the modern ways of sports science, well I'm afraid thats wrong.

We have to embrace sports science.

Yes the Blackcaps are still in the old mode of cricketer, turn up to practice twice a week, don't worry to much about diet, have some beers at the end of a days play.

Meanwhile the opposition are out their at 6am warming up, going thru match videos the night before, its called professionalism, it's to bad the blackcaps don't know what that word means.

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The People Stand up To Faux News

Finally it has started to happen, people are standing up to faux news. Lets hope this is the start of something big.

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Comparing Agent Regulation in the United States and Europe

On Thursday, I had the unique opportunity of guest lecturing in The Hague, The Netherlands at a seminar hosted by the Asser International Sports Law Centre of the T.M.C. Asser Institute, which is a center for research and postgraduate education in the field of international and European law. The center publishes numerous books, including an international sports law series, and for those interested in how sports agents are regulated around the globe I highly recommend their recent publication on the subject, Players Agents Worldwide: Legal Aspects. The seminar provided a great opportunity to engage in a comparative approach to agent regulation, and there are glaring differences between the systems in the U.S. and Europe.

In Europe, FIFA has been very proactive recently in unilaterally adopting strict rules and regulations that govern the certification and activities of agents, including in the areas of exam requirements, compulsory insurance, charging of fees and conflicts of interests (to name just a few). The first question from the perspective of an American familiar with agent regulation in the U.S. is obviously, why should FIFA have any say whatsoever in how agents conduct their business with players? That would be like the NFL dictating to players and agents how their relationship should operate. In the U.S., although we like to think that agent regulation is very complex with all of the various union agent regulations, state laws (UAAA), federal law (SPARTA), NCAA rules, and common law agency and fiduciary duty principles, agent regulation is much more complicated in Europe for a variety of reasons.

First, public regulation of agents via national law oftentimes expressly contradicts FIFA's agent regulations (which bind its member associations that are also bound by national law). For example, national law may prohibit intermediaries from receiving any compensation from workers and only permit compensation to be paid by the employer (which obviously prohibits a player from compensating his agent as permitted by FIFA). To make it more complicated, national law takes precedent over regulations of private associations such as FIFA. However, in the U.S., for the most part, state laws governing agents do not contradict union regulations. State law just adds another layer of certification and fee requirements, and in many respects union regulations are actually more stringent on agents than state and federal law. Also, in the U.S., public regulators basically defer to the unions to monitor and regulate agent misconduct. As I discussed at the seminar, although players unions in the U.S. are private associations (like FIFA), the unions are essentially "quasi-public" regulators of agent activity involving both amateur and professional players because federal labor law affords them the status of "exclusive" representative of the players, which even exempts union agent regulations from antitrust law. While the FIFA regulations have been challenged before under the Treaty of Rome's restraint on trade laws in the Laurent Piau case (in the Court of First Instance), without the benefit of an exemption, the regulations will most likely be challenged again on the same grounds as FIFA continues to make them more strict on agents.

Another glaring difference between the U.S. and Europe is the characterization of the agent's role. In Europe, it is common practice for an agent - referred to as a "broker" - to represent both players and teams (and FIFA even permits it). Although prohibited by the FIFA regulations, clubs sometimes pay the agent's commission on behalf of the player and some club owners and agents even have ownership interests in players' transfer rights. These practices would simply be unheard of in the U.S., because the agent's role is clearly defined as a "fiduciary" role on behalf of the player and the agent is required to serve the best interest of the player and avoid conflicts of interest. Ambiguity over the agent's role in Europe leads to ambiguity regarding what constitutes "agent misconduct". But even exclusively within the U.S. where the agent's role is clearly defined, there is disagreement about what constitutes agent misconduct in certain situations. As an example, is it a conflict of interest for an agent to represent both coaches and players? The NBPA regulations prohibit it (and the union has indicated that it is going to start enforcing that provision) and the NFLPA regulations don't prohibit it. What should the agent certification process entail? And how aggressively should the regulations be enforced against agents? Most importantly, who gets to decide the answers to all of these questions? In the U.S., the labor laws clarify that the union is the proper entity to make these decisions, and, in theory, the players are the ones that should be making these decisions. In Europe, it is not at all clear who is the appropriate entity to regulate and determine the "industry norms."

While it is an industry norm in Europe for agents to work on behalf of both players and clubs, it is most certainly questionable whether FIFA should be unilaterally dictating to players and agents how to operate their relationship. Perhaps a more sensible and practical regulatory approach in Europe would be to bifurcate the club-agent relationship and the player-agent relationship. In other words, maybe FIFA (via its member associations) should only regulate the club-agent relationship, and leave it to the players and agents to figure out the industry norms within their relationship as well as how to regulate it. Such a bifurcation by FIFA would also have a better chance of withstanding future claims by agents that the regulations constitute an illegal restraint on trade.

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Fox News gets Owned by Robert Greenwald

For the past couple of years, Fox news has acted like a Tabloid news group, they send roving reporters and shove cameras in people's faces all for the sake of ratings. Well they don't like it when it happens to them.

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